Collaborative applications are designed to help people involved in a common task achieve goals. The design intent of collaborative applications is to transform the way documents and rich media are shared to enable more effective team collaboration. Collaborative applications provide tools that aid communication, collaboration and the process of problem solving. Additionally, collaborative applications may support project management functions, such as task assignments, time-managing deadlines, work flow, and shared calendars.
Collaborative applications should support the individuals that make up the team and the interactions between them during the group decision making process. The software may also support team membership, roles and responsibilities. Additionally, collaborative support systems may offer the ability to support ancillary systems, such as budgets and physical resources.